HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12021, 21 March 1903, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

When onions are of too strong flavour to be pleasant for sauce, boil a turnip with them, but remove it before using the onions. Durableness of Oilcloth.—lf in covering a kitchen table with oilcloth a layer of brown paper is put on first, it will prevent the oilcloth cracking and make. it wear three times as long. Baked beetroot is considered very delicious by many persons. It should be washed, then baked from two and a. 'half to three hours according to size. Remove the skin when hot, then cut into slices. Pot of Jam.—To keep the air from newlymade jam, glaze a piece of paper with the white of an egg, and. tie over the top—after the jam is cold—with a piece of string which ha-s been soaked in vinegar. " Save your coffee grounds, for they are a very excellent fertiliser for rose bushes. Keep a pail handy, and pour all tea leaves and coffee grounds into it. Then pour the contents of the pail round the rose trees, and they will thrive on this diet. Treatment for Burns.—Burns and scalds should .be treated with glycerine and flour, the latter well heaped over the affected part. Then tie round a linen bandage to exclude the air; if cotton wool is handy it' is better to use' for this purpose than linen. To Clarify Coffee.—One-half of an egg will clear the coffee for. &i family of five or six as well as a whole egg. Beat tho egg and add an «qual quantity) of water. Mix this with the amount of coffee required for one meal, ; and pour the boiling water over it. Oatmeal for Eczema.—When a child suffers from eczema it is best to avoid using soap for it as far as possible; instead, it may be washed with oatmeal water. It is a good plan to make a coarse muslin bag for the oatmeal, and to use it for washing with. Of course, fresh oatmeal is necessary every day. Complexion Diet.—lf you want a good complexion avoid greasy foods, pork, pickles cakes, pastry and indigestible sweets. Don't- eat between meals. Eat plenty of fruit, fresh and stewed, and plenty of green vegetables. Avoid strong tea and coffee, and if you find any particular food does not agree with you leave it alone. For Chapped Hands.—At the first sign of a chap tie the finger up in a rag, thickly spread with boracic ointment, and keep it on until the chap is healed. To prevent chaps coming, bo very careful to always dry your hands thoroughly after washing. Wear warm gloves out of doors, and use a muff when the weather is cold. Prepared oatmeal well rubbed over after drying also helps to keep them in good condition To Clean Delicate Lace.—The best way to

do this at home is to spread the laoe on paper, cover with calcined magnesia, place another paper over, and put it away between the leaves of a book for several days. Then all it needs is a good shales to remove the powder. If the lace is very dirty, however, the process may need to be repeated. Tomato Savoury.—Scald three ripe tomatoes, peel them and remove the seeds, bake until tender, and mash through a sieve.' Add loz of fine breadcrumbs, loz of grated cheese two well-beaten eggs, salt and pepper to taste' Have ready some croutons of fried hread. Stir the tomato and egg mixture together in an enamelled saucepan over a clear fire till set. Pile on the croutons, scatter a little chopped parsley on each, and serve at once. A home-made tooth powder that is inexpensive, pure and excellent, may be made at home with very little trouble. Mix 2oz of pulverised borax with 4oz of precipitated chalk; add loz each of myrrh and pulverised orris root. Sift through a piece of fine muslin and put up in some of your old tooth powder bottles. This, though home-made, is just as good as.nine out of ten of the muchadvertised preparations for the teeth.

Tomato Soup.—Take two quarts of ripe toone carrot, 1 head of celery, three or four slices of beetroot and three large onions, all sliced; put them in a stewpan with halfpound of butter; let, them fry together, keeping the pan shaken one way, then add halfpint of good gravy, and let the whole simmer together till the vegetables are tender and will pulp through a colander or tamis. Simmer the pulp with three pints more of gravy, and season with salt and cayenne. Madrid Creams.—Soak ioz of gelatine in a pint of milk, let it stand for an hour, then place it on a stove and stir till it is dissolved; sweeten and flavour to taste with vanilla essence. "While still very hot, stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs, and 'when a little cooler add the whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Pour into small wetted moulds, turn out to serve, and scatter over white granulated sugar, rubbed into cochineal; over and on top of each mould place a few split blanched almonds.

Few housekeepers know how to cook game. Rabbits should be parboiled with a little- soda in the water, and then stuffed and roasted a rich dark brown, or fried the same colour. Quail should be brushed with melted butter before being broiled, and though venison is again a forbidden dish and the hunters are done shooting each other in mistake for deer, it is well to remember it should hang at least ten days before it is eaten, and be sponged off with vinegar each day. Then it will be tender, delicate and digestible. Morris Pudding.—One ounce of bitter almonds ground, 3oz of sweet almonds, ten penny sponge oakes, 3oz of citron and lemonpeel, cut very fine; 3oz of currants, 3oz of muscatel raisins, five eggs, 6oz of sugar, a pint of milk and a pot of red currant jelly. Beat well together the egg 3, sugar and milk. Break up .and mix all the other ingredients (save the jelly), and fill a pudding mould which has been well buttered and thicklylined with currants. Pour the custard in, put a paper over it and steam for an hour. Melt the pot of jelly, with this mask the pudding and serve hot.

Fish Jelly for Invalids.—This is a very nourishing dish. Take all the bones and the heads of any fish you can get, and stew them in water very gently till the good is drawn out of them. The water must be put over the bones cold, and if the water boils violently at all the jelly will never set. Then add a slice or two of good fish, pepper, and salt, stew till the fish is done. The cooking should be done very slowly, "so that all the nourishment is drawn out of the fish. Strain and put it aside to cool and set into jelly. It can be eaten cold or warmed up as soup. A teaspoonful at a time is good for the most delicate invalid.